wombatK wrote:If it's just business, call it business not sport. Don't expect taxpayer's money and subsidies to provide for training and development of your athletes, cyclists, footballers etc.,. Maybe even bring on HECS fees for institute of sports interns.

I meant the business side of the sport. In the context of the sponsors who make it financially possible for a team to be to participate as Pro Tour Team and in return they get the exposure, association and hopefully sales.

wombatK wrote:If it's just business, call it business not sport. Don't expect taxpayer's money and subsidies to provide for training and development of your athletes, cyclists, footballers etc.,. Maybe even bring on HECS fees for institute of sports interns.

Personally I think this is long overdue.

Why we're happy to bankroll an athlete with no strings attached and not a nurse or a teacher is beyond me

AUbicycles wrote:With the hospital admission around Betsy Andreui, I am not certain what the deal is there and why he wont confess. The doctors/hospital have patient confidentiality so wouldn't think there are any issues there. That said, am wondering about the specific implications on an admission to this - is it because of testimony that Armstrong gave and consequences as it is past the statue of limitations.

My guess is this about not wanting to drop that woman from Oakley in it. She's clearly lied for Pharmstrong under oath at that same deposition where he said the hospital room incident never happened.

It beggars beleive that the pertinent remarks that Betsy and Frankie Andreu witnessed would not have found their way into Armstrongs medical notes at the time of his cancer treatment. I understand that the good doctor/s have also made statements (under oath to the Grand Jury? Or just public "fibs") denying the contents of the conversation. Whatever, he certainly Dr. Larry Einhorn made some misleading statements about it and it is a matter of record that Lance Armstrong/Livestrong or whatever set up a US$1.5M endowment to create a chair in the good oncologists name in his university. Strings have been joined by others between these things.

There are others in that room or who would otherwise know of the matters raised there are probably also being protected.

Last edited by ColinOldnCranky on Tue Feb 05, 2013 10:44 pm, edited 3 times in total.

ColinOldnCranky wrote:David Walsh (Author of LA Confidential etc) implies that LeMond lost around US$30m from his Trek relationship as a fairly direct result of this.)

LeMond himself said $11m, Colin, but either way ...

Yes, I heard that last night. David Walsh earlier published that Trek had intimated to LeMond, by their reckoning, that the lost deal cost him a reckoned $30M over the expected life of the deal.

It would be great if LeMond got some of that money back. To be added to his justifiable elevation from "bitter and jealous past champion" to the one and only US Tour winner. I wonder how many of LeMonds past accusers are now hiding in the shadows hoping it all blows over before their names are tossed around in the public arena also.

This Lance Armstrong thing has ruined the TdF for me - reduced pro-cycling to the level of WWF as was said on the ABC program. Unless there is a serious change in the UCI and a major clean-up in the sport on the whole then I'm going to give it a miss. Which is a real shame & I'll miss it a lot. I had serious doubts about how "clean" the sport was looking at the state of some of the lead riders at the end of mountain stages during last years TdF and this affair goes a long way to confirming my suspicions. Damn you all to hell L.A. and all who follow in your footsteps.

BandedRail wrote:This Lance Armstrong thing has ruined the TdF for me - reduced pro-cycling to the level of WWF as was said on the ABC program.

You need to read "The Secret Race" by Tyler Hamilton and Daniel Coyle.

It'll give you some idea of how it happened - it certainly set me straight. It allowed me to separate the Armstrong personality and "off the planet performances" of other riders of the era from the sport I love. It certainly doesn't make what these riders did "right" in any sense but at least gives some perspective on how it happened (and perhaps is still happening to some degree). It's still better than WWF or pretty much any professional sport if you consider just how widespread the usage of drugs in sport is at the professional level.

So we get the leaders we deserve and we elect, we get the companies and the products that we ask for, right? And we have to ask for different things. – Paul Gildingbut really, that's rubbish. We get none of it because the choices are illusory.

The real cost is the emotional penalty to these people's lives for over a decade. LA made their lives a misery, he dragged them through court, slandered them in the media, lied about them in testimony to his attornys and to the authorities as well as publicly assasinating their characters. How do you place a value on people's lives? Frankie Andreu reckons people would turn their backs when they saw him, they would refuse to shake hands, he lost credibility and friends, all this from the public's belief in a lyer.

''Lance Armstrong's War is the extraordinary story of greatness pushed to its limits; a vivid behind-the-scenes portrait of perhaps the most accomplished athlete of our time as he competes in the toughest sporting event on the planet. The incomparable will to win that famously lifted Armstrong beyond his humble Texas roots, beyond cancer, and to unparalleled heights of success is revealed by acclaimed journalist Daniel Coyle in new and startling dimensions. It is the true story of a superlative sports figure fighting on all fronts -- made newly vulnerable by age, fate, fame, doping allegations, a painful divorce, and an unprecedented army of challengers -- while mastering the exceedingly difficult trick of being Lance Armstrong, a combination of world-class athlete, celebrity, regular guy, and, for many Americans, secular saint. ''

Sayonara wrote:''Lance Armstrong's War is the extraordinary story of greatness pushed to its limits;...

That's gotta be worth a laugh

Not as much as a laugh as the Chris Carmichael training book I saw in the local book shop: "The Lance Armstrong Performance Program, with Lance Armstrong"

I had a flick through it and it doesn't mention EPO or blood transfusions at all! What a gyp.

So we get the leaders we deserve and we elect, we get the companies and the products that we ask for, right? And we have to ask for different things. – Paul Gildingbut really, that's rubbish. We get none of it because the choices are illusory.

MIKE ASHENDEN: There's little doubt in my mind that it was to protect the reputation of the sport. They weren't interested in catching dopers, they were interested in avoiding the scandal with comes with catching dopers.

+1 on this, Brentono. Except it could be in the present tense for the UCI today.

The Telegraph (UK) is reporting that "Lance Armstrong will not pay back more than £7.7 million in bonus payments won as a result of his seven Tour de France victories...." The articles goes on to say

The disgraced American rider’s lawyer, Tim Herman, told USA Today that the refund of bonus payments to SCA Promotions, the company that initially refused to pay out a multi-million bonus and which led to Armstrong lying under oath, was subject to a legal loophole.

The ­settlement terms say the case cannot be reopened, although SCA is about to file a new lawsuit to recoup £7.9 million in costs and bonus money. Herman said that the deal had always been with Armstrong’s management company, Tailwind, not Armstrong personally.

Armstrong will also fail to meet today’s deadline set by the US Anti-Doping Agency to provide information on the extent of his drug-taking during his cycling career.

He has told Usada that he cannot meet the time-frame to provide information because of "prior obligations" but insisted he would co-operate with a truth and reconciliation commission set up by the World Anti-Doping Agency.Armstrong has clashed with the head of Usada, Travis Tygart, who has disputed his claim he was clean during his comeback at the 2009 and 2010 Tours de France.

MIKE ASHENDEN: There's little doubt in my mind that it was to protect the reputation of the sport. They weren't interested in catching dopers, they were interested in avoiding the scandal with comes with catching dopers.

+1 on this, Brentono. Except it could be in the present tense for the UCI today.

With respect to Greg Lemond, but American's cycling really only began and now ended with LA.For many who closely follow cycling, USAC is perceived as being too closely aligned with the UCIBoth are the subject of ongoing accusations, that the UCI has even been complicit in covering up positive drug tests along with USAC.ASHENDEN was privy to all this information (the reason for leaving) and he will be one ofthe key witnesses, if an investigation, at the highest levels, is conducted.Meaning, a Federal or even International Commission, if that is possible.The rot is at the highest levels, and it is Institutional and JingoisticAnd it is not only in Cycling in the good-'ol U. S. of A. (many other sports) Will watch with interest.Note:I'm not saying Australia is above it, either. Cheers

Lone Rider- I rode on the long, dark road... before I danced under the lights.

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